, where he applied himself again to the
decanter.

Just then a knock sounded at the door, and the voice of the domestic
from the kitchen was heard saying that Mr. James's change of clothes was
ready for him in the master's bedroom.

'You know your way, James,' said Jervase. 'You'd better get into dry
toggery at once. The missus will have a bedroom ready for you in half an
hour. Meanwhile, you go and change; and when you come back we'll forget
this nonsense over a bowl of punch. We've both had a drenching this
wild night, and we shall neither of us be the worse for a good Captain's
nip.'

James stole furtively away, making himself as small as possible, and the
General's eye followed him to the door.

'Jervase,' said the General, with a suspicion of satire in his voice,
'your cousin seems to take this ridiculous matter rather seriously.'

'I don't know why he should, sir,' Jervase answered. 'He's had an honest
reputation all his life. Now what is there in this,' he went on, taking
up the scrap of writing the General had laid upon the table, 'what is
there in this to frighten anybody? Who's William Ford, of Ontario,
for instance? William Buckle, U.S.A.--who's he? And what's this other
fellow's name--George Lightfoot, late of Melbourne, now in England----'

'Why!' cried Polson, suddenly, 'that's the very blackguard I----'

He paused suddenly, and turned with a gesture of dismay. He had given
himself no time to calculate the significance of the words he had used,
and they were no sooner spoken than he knew intuitively that he had at
least in part betrayed his father. A lad of a more honest impulse and
conduct could not have been found in all England; but even if his father
were a rogue--and the belief that he was nothing short of that had
already shocked him to the heart--it was not a son's business to betray
him. It was the son's concern to suffer his own share of shame, if shame
should come, and to preserve a front of unshaken confidence. Polson was
frozen at his own indiscretion.

'That is the blackguard,' said the General, with a certain silky quiet
which had in his time grown to be very terrible to people who had come
to understand its meaning, 'that is the blackguard, Polson? Be good
enough to enlighten us a little further. You have some acquaintance with
Lightfoot, late of Melbourne, now in England, though your father has no
knowledge of him.'

'What do you know about any fellow of that name?' Jervase asked